Legendary sports broadcaster Keith Jackson dies at 89

Keith Jackson, one of the most distinctive voices in college football for half a century, died Friday night. He was 89.

ESPN, the sister Disney company to ABC where Jackson spent much of his career, said the family had confirmed Jackson’s death.

Jackson called the biggest events in college football for 40 years at ABC Sports. His last broadcast was the 2006 Rose Bowl, a bowl he coined “the granddaddy of them all." Vince Young scrambled into the end zone in the closing seconds of the game as Texas defeated USC to claim the BCS championship in what some call the best college football game ever.

“Can close my eyes and think of so many of his special calls,” ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit, who was part of the studio cast that final game, wrote on Twitter. “Thank you Keith for all the memories and the grace in which you provided them. RIP Keith